Shoe sewing machines



Aug. 28, 1962 E. QUINN SHOE SEWING MACHINES 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Aug. 25, 1958 12 2 venior Edward Quinn By his Azzorney LLl- Aug, 28, 1962 E. QUINN 3,051,105

. SHOE SEWING MACHINES Filed Aug. 25, 1958 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 United States flice 3,051,105 SHGE SEWHJG MACIHNES Edward Quinn, Peabody, Mass, assignor to United Shoe Machinery Corporation, Boston, Mass, a corporation of New .lersey Filed Aug. 25, 1958, Ser. No. 756,865 4 Claims. (Cl. 1122-52) This invention relates generally to improvements in straight eye-pointed needle sewing machines for adapting such machines to operate on slip-lasted shoes, in which the outsole is secured to a preformed angular welt reversely connected to the upper and sock lining by an inseam. More particularly, the invention is directed to the modification of commercially available sewing machines and to the provision of attachments by means of which the welt may be efficiently sewn to the upper and sock lining in the manufacture of such a shoe.

Since shoes of the slip-lasted type for the production of which the present invention is intended, are sold at low prices, it is an important economical advantage that they be constructed with an insole of light weight, flexible material. One of the disadvantages for use in slip-lasted shoe work of prior art machines such as that disclosed in United Letters Patent No. 2,359,803, issued October 10, 1944, upon application of Karl A. Stritter, is that the shoe parts must of necessity include a somewhat rigid self-supporting insole and the Welt must be flat and formed after sewing in order to be operated upon effectively. The machine of the Stritter patent is a heavily constructed machine of the curved hook needle type intended for inserting seams in thick resistant material and, accordingly, operates at a relatively lower speed than is possible with a straight eye needle machine.

Another machine which is useful for attaching a reverse welt to the marginal portion of a shoe upper and an insole is that disclosed in United States Letters Patent No. 2,763,224, issued September 18, 1956, upon application of James P. Carter. This machine is also of the curved needle type, heavily constructed, and intended to operate upon resistant materials in Goodyear Welt shoe construction. A further disadvantage in sewing sliplasted shoes in the Carter machine is the requirement that the shoe parts which receive the welt be presented to the machine while supported on a last, according to Goodyear welt practice. The combined requirements of relatively slow operating speed, of a heavily constructed machine and of presenting the shoe parts supported on a last, render the use of the Carter machine economically prohibitive in the manufacture of lower priced slip-lasted shoes.

A machine, which is capable of satisfactorily sewing slip-lasted shoes containing a flexible platform wrapper strip, is disclosed in United States Letters Patent No. 2,742,005, issued April 17, 1956, upon an application filed in my name. This machine is of a commercially available eye-pointed needle post type and is modified for inserting a seam through an upper, sock lining and the wrapper strip. In operating upon slip-lasted shoes, the parts are presented to the machine with the Wrapper strip lowermost and in contact with a work feeding dog. While the machine is suitable for sewing together the parts of a shoe having a flexible platform wrapper strip, the substitution of a relatively rigid preformed reverse welt in place of a wrapper strip requires excessive distortion of the shoe to insure its proper presentation and otherwise renders the operation of the machine excessively diflicult to manage by many operators of average skill.

. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a machine for connecting together by a scam the parts of a slip-lasted shoe including preformed angular reverse welt While the shoe parts are unsupported by a last.

it is another object of the invention to employ for the purpose of sewing slip-lasted shoes containing a preformed angular reverse welt, a standard commercially available machine which operates efficiently at high speed and to modify the machine with simple inexpensively produced parts.

It is a further object to provide a machine which may be operated at high speed and without requiring extensive periods of training from an operator of no more than average skill.

In the achievement of the foregoing objects a feature of the invention relates to a non-feeding presser foot of novel construction supported on the non-feeding presser foot bar of a straight eye-pointed needle machine and having a Welt embracing and clamping portion extending from the presser foot bar at the rear of the sewing point to a point of engagement with the welt ahead of the sewing point together with adjustable means for varying the spacing between the welt embracing means and the line of the seam to accommodate difierent types of work. Basically, except as hereinafter described, the machine employed for the present purpose is like that shown in my above-identified patent. As in that machine, the present construction includes a post having a Work sup porting portion of minimum area so that the parts of a slip-lasted shoe being operated upon may be turned and otherwise manipulated for presentation to a needle without being subjected to undue stress or distortion.

Another feature of the invention relates to the notched construction of the non-feeding presser foot and the provision of an edge gage of novel construction. The edge gage is formed with a projection which enters a slot in the non-feeding presser foot so that escape of the welt is prevented as the presser foot is raised and lowered to unclamp and clamp the Work during sewing operations. The combination of the novel edge gage and the non-feeding presser foot thereby retains complete control of the welt and provides accurate direction of the parts of the shoe being presented to the needle with minimum friction while at the same time gripping and releasing the parts for sewing and work feeding as required.

The foregoing objects and features of the invention, as well as numerous advantages, will become more readily apparent from the following description of an illustrative embodiment taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary view in left side elevation of a shoe sewing machine embodying the features of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a view in front elevation of the portion of the machine shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along the line IIIHI of FIG. 1 and showing some of the novel elements of the machine including a non-feeding presser foot and an edge gage grouped around the sewing point;

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary view in perspective showing the work guiding and clamping instrumentalities of the machine;

FIG. 5 is a perspective detail view showing the nonclamping presser foot and the edge gage in separated relationship; and

FIG. 6 is a simplified fragmentary view of the nonclamping presser foot and the edge gage in normal operative relationship but omitting other parts of the machine for clarity.

As in the machine of my above-identified patent, the present construction includes an eye-pointed needle 2 through the eye of which passes a thread 4, a Work-feeding presser foot 6 supported for reciprocation and workfeeding movement on a work-feeding presser foot bar 8, and a modified work support post which encloses a shuttle of usual construction, not shown, and a feed dog 12 co-operatively associated with the work-feeding presser foot 6 in feeding the work. In addition, the machine includes a vertically reciprocating non-feeding presser foot bar 14 and an edge gage supporting bracket 16 depending from the machine frame. The bracket 16 is movable horizontally to bring an edge gage indicated at 18 supported on the bracket either closer or farther away from the point of needle operation by means of a knurled thumb screw 20. A clamp screw 22 is provided for clamping the bracket 16 in place, after the required position of the edge gage has been attained. For supporting the edge gage 18 on the bracket 16, a screw 24 passes through a slot 26 in the bracket and is threaded into a tapped hole in an upper shank portion 28 of the edge gage.

In the drawings the shoe operated upon is illustrated as comprising a sock lining 30- usually of relatively thin, flexible woven material, an upper 32 and a preformed reverse welt indicated at 34 of L-shaped cross section having an inseam flange 35 and an outsole attaching flange 36 in the process of being connected together by a single seam 37. The construction illustrated in which a single seam is employed is the most economical of various alternatives from the point of view of reducing the labor cost in manufacture but other constructions are permissible employing the present machine. For example, the shoe may include two seams, the first seam being inserted through the upper and sock lining only and the second seam passing through these two parts and the welt. If a two-seam construction is contemplated, the second or welt-attaching seam may be inserted closer to the edge of the sock lining and upper than the first seam and in this way the size of the shoe is determined by the first seam which is inserted without having to consider at the same time the requirements of welt attachment. If the second seam is thus inserted in close parallel relation with and outside the first seam the stresses of wear are distributed to the two seams, thereby eliminating or greatly reducing a major inherent weakness found in slip-lasted shoes including a flexible platform wrapper strip connected to the other parts by a second seam spaced inwardly from the first.

Because the present machine permits the attachment of a preformed welt to the other parts of a shoe while requiring a minimum of attention on the part of th operator, the insertion of a single seam by which all three parts of the shoe are connected may be accomplished with a speed comparable to that which is achieved in connecting the upper and sock lining only by a single seam, the direction of the welt, its clamping and feeding being entirely automatic as will be seen. As a result of employing the present machine, a shoe of substantially better wearing qualities may be manufactured at a cost which is onlyslightly greater than that of the usual type of sliplasted shoe including a relatively rigid platform wrapped by a flexible platform wrapper strip and an adhesively attached outside. In the case of the present shoe construction, after the sewing operation is complete the pocket formed by the sock lining 30 may be either filled with a filling compound or a platform equal in thickness to the down-turned margin of the sock lining and accurately cut to fit, may be adhesively secured on the tread surface of the sock lining. The shoe may be then completed by attaching an outsole by an outseam passing through the outsole and the outwardly extending flange of the welt and after an outsole is worn the shoe may be readily repaired by attaching a new outsole as is commonly done to Goodyear Welt shoes.

For connecting and feeding the welt and other shoe parts, the present machine is provided with work-feeding devices including two alternately acting presser feet, one of which, the work-feeding presser foot 6, co-operates with the work-feeding dog 12 as already mentioned. The work-feeding presser foot 6 is formed with an opening 38 shown exaggerated in size for clarity in PIG. 3 but which in practice fits the needle 2 and is alined therewith relatively accurately. The work-feeding devices grip a small area of the opposite sides of the work simultaneously and move in unison for feeding the work from right to left, as seen in FIG. 1, the presser foot engaging the welt directly above the point of engagement with the sock lining of the work-feeding dog 12. The work-feeding presser foot is raised out of engagement with the welt at the end of each work-feeding movement and returned the length of a stitch to descend again into engagement with the welt for the next work-feeding movement.

Co-operating with the work-feeding presser foot 6 in clamping the work is a work-clamping or non-feeding presser foot indicated at 49 suported on the lower end of the non-feeding presser foot bar 14. For the purpose of receiving the non-feeding presser foot the lower end of the bar 14 is forked and receives in its fork a flattened portion of an adapter or shank 42 which is retained on the presser foot bar by a screw 44 and upon which the non-feeding presser foot is adjustable laterally of the line of the seam. At its forward end the non-feeding presser foot 40 is U-shaped having a notch 46 which embraces the outsole attaching flange 36 of the welt 34, shown upstanding in FIGS. 1 and 2, for guiding it accurately into the sewing point of the machine. The presser foot 40 is pivoted to the lower end of the adapter 42 by a screw 48 which passes through a laterally extending flange 49 of the presser foot and is threaded into the adapter. To hold the presser foot 49 in adjusted position relative to the adapter and to the line of the seam by which the welt is secured to the shoe, a pair of adjusting screws 50* pass through a vertical flange portion of the presser foot and engage the adapter at opposite sides of the axis of the screw 49, the flange portion being spaced from the adapter as shown in FIG. 3. In order to minimize the number of different parts necessary and to obtain the requisite accuracy of welt direction it is only necessary that the non-feeding presser foot be changed when there are substantial differences in the thickness of the outsole attaching flange. Although in FIG. 2 the outer edge of the welt 34 is shown in very close relation to the upper surface of the welt confining notch in the nonfeeding presser foot, it will be appreciated that in practice the height of the notch is made sufiicient to accommodate the widest welt expected to be operated upon. Accurate direction of welts having outsole attaching flanges of varying thicknesses necessitates different nonfeeding presser feet for a relatively close fitting relationship between the welt directing notch and the outsole attaching flange.

In order to maintain control of the welt when the nonfeeding presser foot is raised out of engagement with the shoe parts during feeding movement and also to provide accuracy in directing the parts, a novel co-operative arrangement of work-engaging portions of the edge gage 18 and the non-feeding presser foot 40 is employed in the present construction. For this purpose the non-feeding presser foot 40 is formed with an indentation 51 into which extends a tongue 52 upstanding from a portion of the edge gage 18 extending parallel to the line of the seam adjacent the point of needle operation. It will be seen that as the non-feeding presser foot 40 reciprocates vertically a distance less than the engagement of the tongue 52 with the indentation 51, it is impossible for the welt to escape to the right or to enter the space between the presser foot and the edge gage because the welt, as seen in FIG. 4, is continuously in contact either with the edge gagev or the presser foot. Particularly when sewing about abruptly curved portions of a shoe, such as the toe, without the tongue and indentation construction just described,

there is a tendency for the outseam flange to flatten out and by entering between the presser foot and the edge gage cause serious damage to the machine. It is also seen that misdirection of the welt by approaching from the left, as seen in the same figure, is also prevented because of the presence of a downward extending finger 54 which, when the non-feeding presser foot is down, clamps the shoe parts by engaging the welt and pressing it against the shoe parts generally along the line of the seam in advance of the point of needle operation and is never raised during feeding movement to a level above the outer edge of the welt.

In the foregoing description of an illustrative embodiment of the present invention the novel parts have been described as incorporated in a machine generally in accordance with that disclosed in my prior, above-identified United States patent, but it will be appreciated that they are equally suitable for use in other machines commonly employed for sewing together the parts of sliplasted shoes. By employing the machine of my prior patent, however, not only is accurate direction provided in advance of the point of sewing for a preformed reverse welt and the other parts of a slip-lasted shoe accurately edge guided, but also the connecting of the shoe parts is accomplished with minimum distortion and resistance to feeding movement since the area of work support which is also subject to clamping pressure is reduced to a minimum.

Having pointed out the novel aspects of my invention and described in detail an illustrative embodiment, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. A sewing machine for inserting a seam through a reverse welt having inseam and outseam flanges and through the margins of other shoe parts including a shoe upper and a sock lining while the parts are unsupported by a last, said machine having a frame, a work-supporting post, a straight eye-pointed needle mounted for reciprocating movement toward and from the post, a Workfeeding dog extending through the upper surface of the post, a work-clamping presser foot bar and a Work-feeding presser foot, in combination with a work-clamping presser foot supported on the Work-clamping bar, extending to a point of clamping engagement with the welt ahead of the needle, work-clamping presser foot including means for embracing the welt to restrain it against lateral movement during the portion of the sewing cycle when the work-clamping presser foot is out of clamping engagement with the welt as the shoe parts are being advanced and also having an indentation between its welt embracing portion and the work-clamping presser foot bar, and an edge gage formed with a tongue extending into the indentation and maintained at least partially within the indentation throughout normal movements of the work-clamping presser foot.

2. A sewing machine for inserting a seam through a reverse welt having inseam and outseam flanges and through the margins of other shoe parts including a shoe upper and a sock lining while the parts are unsupported by a last, said machine having a frame, a worksupporting post, a straight eye-pointed needle mounted for reciprocating movement toward and from the post, a work feeding dog extending through the upper surface of the post, a work-clamping presser foot bar and a work-feeding presser foot, in combination with means on the work-clamping bar for pressing the welt against the shoe parts comprising a work-clamping presser foot, extending to a point of clamping engagement with the welt ahead of the needle, and including means ahead of the needle for embracing the welt to restrain it against lateral movement during the portion of the sewing cycle when the work-clamping presser foot is out of clamping engagement with the welt as the shoe parts are being advanced and means for varying the spacing between the welt embracing means and the line of the seam.

3. A sewing machine for inserting a seam through a reverse welt having inseam and outseam flanges and through the margins of other shoe parts including a shoe upper and a sock lining while the parts are unsupported by a last, said machine having a frame, a work-supporting post terminating in a work-supporting surface of small area, a straight eye pointed needle mounted for reciprocating movement toward and from the post, a work-feeding dog extending through the upper surface of the post, a work-clamping presser foot bar and a workfeeding presser foot, in combination with a work-clamping presser foot on the work-clamping bar, extending to a point of clamping engagement with the welt ahead of the needle, and welt guiding means in the forward portion of the work-clamping presser foot for restraining the welt against lateral movement during the portion of the sewing cycle when the work-clamping presser foot is out of clamping engagement with the welt as the shoe parts are being advanced, said Welt guiding means including a depending prong terminating at its lower end in a Work-clamping surface adapted to clamp the shoe parts against the work-supporting surface of the post in advance of the needle.

4. A sewing machine for inserting a seam through a reverse welt having inseam and outseam flanges and through the margins of other shoe parts including a shoe upper and a sock lining While the parts are unsupported by a last, said machine having a frame, a Work-supporting post, a straight eye-pointed needle mounted for reciprocating movement toward and from the post, a workfeeding dog extending through the upper surface of the post, a work-clamping presser foot bar and a Workfeeding presser foot, in combination with a work-clamping presser foot shank fixedly supported in the workclamping bar, a Welt guiding and clamping member pivotally supported on the shank, having a welt engaging portion in advance of the needle, and also having an indentation adjacent the needle, means for adjusting the position of the member about the pivot and for locking it in adjusted position, and an edge gage having a tongue extending upwardly into the indentation in the guiding member.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 535,686 Eddy et a1. Mar. 12, 1895 896,293 Goddu Aug. 18, 1908 2,681,626 Rice June 22, 1954 2,742,005 Quinn Apr. 17, 1956 2,763,224 Carter Sept. 18, 1956 2,779,299 Randall Jan. 29, 1957 

